Just before last Christmas, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration announced significant expansion of its Site-Specific Targeting program for nonconstruction workplaces that have 20 or more employees.
The agency will use injury and illness rates it can draw from OSHA Form 300A data that employers filed during 2017-19 as the basis for selecting workplaces for inspection.
OSHA’s new directive also establishes protocols for “records only” inspections in the event that a worksite was included on the inspection list because of incorrect data submitted by an employer.
Among the significant changes is the creation of a new targeting category for establishments that have demonstrated consistent injury and illness rate increases over the three-year data collection period.
The program also now will include the occurrence of records-only inspections when a compliance safety and health officer determines incorrect data led to an establishment’s inclusion in the program.
The last change is intended to make sure that OSHA will conduct a full inspection only in situations where the employer has an actual elevated injury and illness experience.
This directive cancels 19-01(CPL 02), Site-Specific Targeting 2016 (SST16) previously issued on Oct. 16, 2019 and will expire in two years, unless it is replaced by a new instruction that the agency may choose to issue.
In addition to the Site-Specific Targeting program, OSHA has been implementing other national and local primary emphasis programs that are specially designed to target high-risk hazards and industries.
These programs target workplace threats and activities such as combustible dust, hexavalent chromium, lead, primary metal industries, process safety management (PSM) in the chemcial industry, respirable crystalline silica, and trenching and excavation in the construction industry.
